Should I upgrade from my FX-9370?

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Hectic_Will

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Jan 2, 2014
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Hello,

I have currently have a AMD FX-9370 @ 4.7GHz + Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 + GTX 770 PC Setup and I was wondering if I should upgrade my Motherboard and CPU to a i5 4960k + Asus Z87 -A. I don't really wanna go through the pain of switching out motherboards and CPU's but I wanna know if this will give me any major performance gain, I have about $400 to spend so should I spend it on something else such as an SSD, new keyboard + headset etc. I don't need a new monitor either.
 
Solution
NO major performance gain will be obtained unless you change your GPU. This FX-9370 is strong enough So the bottleneck of your system is GPU and the Drive. Please do not listen to Intel fan which thinks that any intel can beat an AMD. Also, as time goes, games will take more advantage of an 8-core CPU like yours and you would eventually lose in performance by going on and I5 Haswell. You would need to go for an high-end I7 haswell to gain something like 10% performance boost and since both system will run your games at 60 FPS, you wouldn't notice the difference.
The i7 wont leave enough budget for the motherboard.
AMD processors dont suck, you might want to make sure people dont hear you say that (They get upset)

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x874Bm
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x874Bm/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($238.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $378.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

This would be considered and upgrade, but its up to you. If the performance you have now isnt satisfactory, upgrade. If its not, SSD.
 
I would just keep the current setup and buy SSD or pay the rent what ever you want to do with the money. Not going to be much of a difference in performance with the current cpu you have.
 


Should I just stick with my setup for a while until some new hardware comes out?
 


In a previous thread I posted I stated that I sold my second 770 because it didn't really affect my performance in a single monitor setup
 


As others have said, it might be a good idea to spend the money on the SSD and some peripherals.
 
NO major performance gain will be obtained unless you change your GPU. This FX-9370 is strong enough So the bottleneck of your system is GPU and the Drive. Please do not listen to Intel fan which thinks that any intel can beat an AMD. Also, as time goes, games will take more advantage of an 8-core CPU like yours and you would eventually lose in performance by going on and I5 Haswell. You would need to go for an high-end I7 haswell to gain something like 10% performance boost and since both system will run your games at 60 FPS, you wouldn't notice the difference.
 
Solution
Its strong enough to run the system yes, that dosent mean its a valuable component.
Games are hardly able to use 2-4 threads at the moment, and it will be some time before systems need 8 threads in games. Even then, intel has a stronger overall architecture.
And before you say I'm a fanboy, I own AMD, all I have ever ran. Their price/performance in the entry level market is astounding. But in the performance market they cant compete with the high end.
 


Not an issue with overheating, I run at a stable 60 degrees Celsius on my CPU and my GPU is around 40 degrees Celsius.

Specs:
AMD FX-9370
MSI GTX 770 OC EDITION
Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard
Asetek 570LX CPU Cooler
8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 Memory @ 1866MHz
2TB WD Caviar Blue HDD w/ Raid 1 Config
 
Please note: I have had an SLI setup before and I did not benefit from it as much as I would have liked, I will think of getting an SSD for now and stick with my GPU for now, probably get some peripherals.
 


Sorry! I am using a Corsair AX850w PSU GOLD

EDIT: I use 1920x1080 and my problem is that I have $400 to spend and I want my PC to last so I was wondering if I should get an Intel processor with the money
 
If you were in a situation where you actually NEEDED two GTX770s and you had two 2GB 770s, I wouldn't be surprised if there was no performance gain from the second one. You could have been held back by vram. One 770 is not strong enough to max out 2GB of vram but two 770s will max out 2GB very quick.
 


"Hurr durr AMD processors suck"

God, it's okay to have a preference, but don't fanboy and recommend an over-budget i7 on top of it all. Intel does beat AMD in the high end, there's absolutely no doubt there, but there's no need to upgrade if the processor meets your needs and is within your budget. That is AMD's strong suit, their processors are less powerful, but also for comparatively far less than an Intel CPU will run you.
 


Lemme give you some examples of my experiences from games I played with SLI and non-SLI:

CS:GO (1920x1080):
SLI: 150-200 FPS
NON-SLI: 200-300 FPS

BF4: (1920x1080) (64-Man Servers)
SLI: 80-100 FPS; lag spikes every 30 seconds
NON-SLI: 80-100 FPS; lag spikes every 30 seconds
^ No improvements with SLI

Tom Clancy's Phantom Recon: (1920x1080)
SLI: 60-80 FPS; Lag spikes everywhere
NON-SLI: 60 FPS; Barely any spikes

I don't really benefit from SLI with single monitor gaming so I sold my second 770
 


I been using amd since the Slot 1 days and they never let me down. I was given a gift for xmas a Pentium 2 Core duo and man i was disappointed with multitasking. Couldn't tab out with any game running or my computer ran to a crawl. But it gave out good performance for 1 application at a time and not sure how it is now
 
Oh and as for the topic - No, it's not worth an upgrade in its current state. You'll probably get roughly comparable performance between the two.

The only way I could recommend it is for the amount of power you save switching to a far lower TDP processor, but then, it's kinda a catch 22 when you have to spend way more than you'd spend on electricity bills making such an upgrade.

Could you overclock? The 9000 series comes out of the box with such a high voltage that you could probably just disable TurboCore and up the multi a few times. That coupled with the high-binning of these chips could potentially give you some headroom. Which CPU cooler are you using?

The SSD will give you an incredible speed boost, on the budget you stated I reckon the best idea is to go for a decent SSD, at a size of around 250GB and additionally buy a good desk setup.
As someone mentioned above, you'd be surprised how much of a change you notice with a good set of peripherals. Sink your teeth into a mechanical keyboard, good mouse and a good mouse mat.

I have habit of being one of those people that preaches the use of mouse mats, but I just think there's truly no comparison, invest a bit more and get a hard one if you can (Like the MM600 in my sig, love it to bits).

These 4 things combined will make for one hell of a more comfortable computing experience!

If you have any left over, invest in a decent pair of headphones. Headsets are great, but I can't say as I've ever enjoyed the sound or mic quality on any of them (Personally). It can set you back quite a bit, but a good pair of headphones and a USB studio condenser will always be superior imo. If you have the space for it of course.

You could definitely buy quite the setup on that kind of budget.
 
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